"What I choose is to find someone who can feel, Ranger. Someone who has a heart."

He watched, face impassive, as she stumbled away from him, her eyes bright with tears, and he felt that impossible, powerful ache again, somewhere deep in his chest, growing stronger with every step she took away from him.

She was going to walk away from him and it was going to be as bad as the last time. This was … unacceptable. He'd spent most of his adult life planning ops and missions, sifting through situational intel, men and resources, trying to solve situations for the right outcome. The best outcome. There had to be an outcome here and now that didn't feel like he was being ripped apart, but he was damned if he could find it.

The last time they'd talked he'd been blunt with her to the point of cruelty, but he couldn't lie to her or sugar-coat who and what he was and what he was not capable of giving. She deserved better. That she was certain he could give her what she wanted, if only he was willing to let go of some of the rigid control he kept of himself and his surroundings, only made it worse.

He did a quick gut-check, relying on the instincts that had kept him alive and relatively sane all these years. Was she worth giving up parts of himself that he'd worked so hard to develop and hone over the years? Was she right about him? The answer was immediate.

Yes.

He closed his eyes. There was his answer: she is worth it all.

As Stephanie hurried down the hall toward the restrooms, almost at a run, her date came up to Ranger and shoved his shoulder. The man was a little taller than Ranger and fit in the way that several hours a week at the gym produced – muscle for show, not hard work. His eyes widened in surprise when his shove produced no result. Ranger didn't move an inch.

"Look, who the hell are you? It took me weeks to talk her into this date! This was an expensive night out, dinner and then drinks and dancing here and I had plans for her. She owed me." He brought up his hand to give another shove and Ranger grabbed that hand in one of his, twisting and pulling in one smooth move, forcing the man to his knees, his arm levered behind him.

"You should leave," Ranger said softly, menacingly, into the man's ear, feeling his other hand curl into a fist at the idea that a night out had a price Steph was expected to pay with her body.

The man struggled slightly and Ranger tightened his grip enough to be painful – a little more pressure and the shoulder would pop out of the socket. "Leave," he said again, this time in a low growl. The man stopped moving and stared up at Ranger, who released him and took a step back.

The man stood up, looked back toward the restrooms where Stephanie had vanished and then back at Ranger. They locked eyes and the man looked down and away. "I need to pay..." he started.

"I'll take care of it. Just leave now."

He nodded and walked quickly away. Ranger watched him go and signaled to the cocktail waitress for the bill.

Tank moved up to stand behind him as he handed the waitress money, Tank's voice rumbling in a low laugh. "What the hell are you doin', man?"

Ranger huffed out a short, bitter laugh. He rubbed his eyes. "Losing my fucking mind."

Tank snorted. "Or maybe getting it back. You going after her?" When he didn't answer, Tank continued. "We got this handled. You just go do … whatever, man. And don't screw it up."

As Ranger pushed out of the building, he heard the rest of the team in his comm unit.

"Hey, was that the Bombshell?"

"What, the Rangeman is bailing on the job to go after her?"

"Holy shit, are they gonna go for Round 2?"

"Oh, man, this is either going to be really good or, like, spectacularly bad. No way to know."

He yanked the comm out of his ear and stuffed it in a cargo pocket. There was a time when they wouldn't have trash-talked him on the comms. Before a certain bounty hunter came into their lives and upended everything.

-0- -0- -0-

Stephanie stood in the parking lot, staring at the empty slot where her date's car had been. Ranger pulled the Porsche in front of her and got out to open the passenger door. He'd need to handle her very carefully if he didn't want to see the full, semi-irrational temper on display.

"Ride home?" he asked.

Her back stiffened and she didn't turn around. "I don't want a ride from you. I have a date."

"Your date left. A ride home is the least I can do."

She spun around. "Left? Or you scared him off?" At his shrug, she started in. "What the hell gives you the right..."

"You weren't interested in him anyway," he said.

"That is none of your business," she said forcefully, her tone sharp. "Who I date. Who I..." she let the sentence trail off.

He folded his arms and leaned against the Porsche's door sill. "You never struck me as the transactional type."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"He buys you dinner, in return you fu..."

"Don't," she warned him. Her nostrils flared and her blue eyes flashed dangerously. "I know you like that 'no price' speech, but it's such bullshit. There is always a price." She took a step forward to jab a finger into his chest. "I loved you and it came with a huge price. One that I just couldn't stand to pay anymore. At least on this date the price was straightforward."

"Get in the car," he said, pleased that his voice was still level. "I'm not going to do this here."

She turned and snarled directly at him. "Fuck. You."

"Get in the car. Now," he repeated, trying to project calm despite his rapidly fraying temper. She sometimes had the ability to soothe something that raged deep inside him, but she also had the ability to stir up some of the dark things inside him he'd tried to bury under an attitude of zen calm – anger, possessiveness, jealousy. Those were not productive emotions. She didn't always make him a better person, but she certainly made him feel like no one else ever had.

She folded her arms and tapped a high heel at him. "Are you threatening me?"

He held his hands up, just below shoulder level, arms spread out and palms toward her. As non-threatening as he could get at the moment. "Just get in and I'll drive you home."

The foot kept tapping.

He let out a long breath. "Please get in."

She looked at the empty parking space her date's car had been in and back at the Porsche. With an annoyed sigh she marched to the Porsche and threw herself down into the low-slung seat, ignoring the hand he offered to help her in. He silently admired the flash of long leg exposed as he closed her door.

-0- -0- -0- -0-

Ranger drove in his zone and she checked him for all the subtle tells she had learned over time. His hands were steady on the wheel, his fingers relaxed. When he reached behind the steering wheel to activate the paddle shifters, his fingers were loose, but there was still the slightly irritated quick snap that told her he was tense. He was also driving over the speed limit and his cornering was more than normally aggressive, the tires chirping a little as they went around corners.

He drove the way he did everything else: with confidence and a skill that was undeniable. She'd been in this car with him before when they'd been in a real hurry and she'd been too terrified to look over at the speedometer, based on how fast the landscape was flashing by, but he was not driving anywhere near those speeds now.

In the car she was in Ranger's hands and there had never been a safer place. Physically safer, anyway. Her body was always safe with him, but her heart? Not so much. Her split with Joe had been a long, inevitable grind that left her feeling tired and a little bruised. The split with Ranger had been a deep, sharp, piercing full-body pain that lingered, still bleeding, and made it hard to breathe sometimes.

The leather seats in this car had always been so soft, luring her into calm and comfort, but there was no calm to be had at the moment. The tension in the air was physical, palpable.

She glanced at his face, weakly illuminated by the dash lights and the occasional street light. And there she saw the tension she could feel in the car. In his eyes, in the set of his jaw. She narrowed her eyes. What did he have to be tense about? They weren't together. He'd set the rules for them and it was his way or nothing. And now he'd ruined her evening, run off her date and thrown some ugly words at her head.

Faster than she was ready for, they pulled into her lot. Her car was already next to the dumpster, so he wasn't forced to park there, but there were no open spaces, either. He simply parked in the fire zone, right under the "No Parking: Tow Zone" sign.

"That's a ticket or a tow, you know."

"Babe, no one will tow my car." She looked for the hint of a smile on his face, but it wasn't there.

She snorted. "No, probably not." And he'd ignore any ticket or just give it to his lawyer to argue or eventually pay. She opened the passenger door and headed toward the lobby door.

He stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Let me check your apartment first."

The urge to roll her eyes was strong. "You don't need to. I've been fine for the last two months. No stalkers, no strange visitors. There is no one in my apartment." He just stood, looking at her, the blank expression not changing. "Fine," she finally said. "Go ahead. It's not like I can stop you anyway."

She walked to the elevator as he walked to the stairwell and waited for her. She stayed where she was and folded her arms. The elevator opened with a ding and she stepped in, not facing him. He caught the door as it was closing and stepped in beside her.

At her door he held his hand out for her keys. She wanted to roll her eyes, but she felt the familiar sting of tears, instead. How many times had they done this? Usually they walked down the hall to her door together, his hand low on her back, his fingers warm, his hand supportive and he'd flash her a smile as she gave him the keys, his face going serious as he drew his gun and cleared her apartment as she waited outside for him.

There was no smile for her this time and he opened the door and she didn't wait for him to clear the rooms before walking in and tossing her coat and bag on the sofa. She kept her back to him as he cleared the small living room and kitchen and then headed for her bedroom and bathroom. Rex had been squeaking on his wheel when they'd walked in, but as she flipped on the light he went silent, probably hiding in his soup can. Smart creature.

"Satisfied? I haven't got any men hidden up here. No stalkers, either." He didn't comment as he came back into the room and she wasn't surprised. The few times she'd tried to engage him in arguing with her, his response had been silence. No arm-waving Italian/Hungarian-style yelling and fighting here, although she was pretty sure that Latin Cuban blood ran hot as well. He just refused to show it. "So you can leave now, and go back to your take down. I'm sure the guys miss having you there to order them around."

"Tank's handling it." His voice was calm, cool, dispassionate – and it made her want to scream.

"Wow. So you have a night off."

"I need to talk to you."

That made her snort again. That sentence never meant anything good, in her experience. "Not really sure that I want to hear it. Our last talk didn't go so well for me. You know where the door is, Ranger." She felt him behind her, felt his solid, dark presence looming behind her, and she stiffened.

His hands came to rest gently on her hips, and he pressed a light kiss to the back of her head and then rested his forehead there. They stood together like that, still, and she fought to keep her body from trembling and she fought the urge to say something to him.

He broke the silence. "I want you." His voice was low and soft.

"You don't want me enough to let me in." She struggled to keep her voice even, unsure if she'd cry or scream at him if she let her voice break. "You want amusement. Entertainment. Sex."

"No," he said, turning her around to face him. "I want you. All of you."

There was no expression on his face, but she could see something deep and intense in his eyes. This had been the thing that had driven them apart; the physical mask, the solid, mostly impenetrable wall between what he said and what he felt. And instinctively, intuitively, she knew he did feel, he just wouldn't show it.

"We've had this conversation before, Ranger, and I don't want to have it again." She needed to get out of this. The only room in her apartment with a lock on it was the bathroom and he could probably pick the lock faster than the two seconds it would take him to kick the flimsy hollow door in. The only other option was to make him leave. "Just go, please."

"We need to have that conversation again, with a different ending this time."

She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her. His hands were gentle but immovable. "You want all of me, but you won't give me all of you."

He tipped his head back, took a deep breath, let it out and then looked back down at her. "I will give you anything you want. Everything you want."

"I don't want things from you, Ranger. I don't want your cars, your apartment, your..."

"Not what I meant, Babe."

She pulled away from him and this time he let her go. "What do you mean, then?" She crossed her arms, hugging herself, trying to protect herself from him and whatever it was he was going to say next.

"I want you back, Steph. At Haywood this time, with me."

She dropped her head and sighed. What was he thinking? This was impossible. "At Haywood? You want me to live with you? Are you out of your mind?"

The slightest of smiles ticked up one corner of his mouth. "Very possibly."

She shook her head at him. "This is not a good time for Ranger humor. It didn't work out last time when we had our own places to retreat to and cool down, what will make it work this time?"

"We will make it work. No separation, no retreat, no hiding this time. All in. Completely in. We work together, live together," he reached out a hand and took hers, drawing her into him. "Love together."

His arms came around her again and she shook her head. When he touched her, when he held her, it was so easy to believe in him. In them. The reality hadn't been as easy. "You are a workaholic with serious trust and privacy issues. You don't like to show emotion, even in private. You like to bark out orders and you expect them to be obeyed without question."

"That is all true." The edges of his lips started to curl into a smile. "And you let stubbornness, anger and denial keep you from thinking your way through things, you want to yell and wave your hands and stomp off instead of discuss, you don't do well with orders and you question everything." His arms tightened around her. "We'll work on all of it. Together."

She felt herself starting to smile back. He'd always understood her pretty well. Then she killed the smile. "No, no, no," she said. "it hurt too much the first time to do it again, Ranger. I made that mistake with Joe, going one more round even when it wasn't working. I won't do it again with a man who won't let me in."

He reached a hand up and brushed her hair back from her face, his thumb trailing over her cheekbones. He took a deep breath and she realized that he was about to say something that he found difficult. "You're already in, Babe, already a part of me. I think about you every day. I miss you every day. I wonder where you are, what you are doing." His voice was deep and felt like it vibrated into her entire body. Simple, heartfelt, words.

It was one of the most intimate things he'd ever said to her. He'd told her that he loved her before, always with some kind of qualifier, but rarely had he said something so personal.

He pulled her close, his eyes fixed on hers, open and warm, and she could see in, all the way in. He bent his head to kiss her, slowly, so slowly, giving her time to decide. For all his take-charge personality, he'd never forced her to do anything, he always left that little space at first that let her know it was her choice. If she pushed him away, if she rejected him, he'd let her go – and he'd leave and they'd be done forever.

But she didn't want to push him away. She put a hand on his chest and she could feel the warmth of his skin through the shirt, feel the strong steady thump of his heart, her own already beating in sync. He was so close his warm breath tickled her ear. She stood up on her toes to meet him. "Ranger," she whispered.

His hand shifted to cup the side of her face and he bent the rest of the way to kiss her, his lips warm and soft at first, gentle brushes moving across hers. She reached up to cup his neck and pull him in for a harder, firmer kiss.

She heard his soft growl, low in his throat, as his lips slanted across hers in the deep, hard kiss she'd wanted, and her arms went around him, tightening on his neck and shoulder. He kissed her again, his mouth demanding and hot. The kiss lingered, deepening, and then he pulled back. "We know what we need to work on." He let out a long exhale. "So let's start the way we will go on. Pack a bag and we'll go to Haywood." He was on the edge of smiling, but his face was serious and intent.

She smacked her head on his chest, which was pretty much the same thing as smacking it on a wall. "Oh my God, Ranger, is that an order?"

"No. It's a … request."

She laughed, shaking her head, for what felt like the first time in weeks, feeling lines of pain and tension unwind from around her heart and her body.

He smiled then, the full flashing white smile that she loved so much, the one that made her feel weak at the knees sometimes.

"Go pack," he said again, turning her toward her bedroom. "Let's go home, Babe," he whispered in her ear.

~ finis

And, because this story started as a music short, it has to end as one:

Come live with me and be my love
Share my bread and wine
Be life to me
Be wife to me
Be mine

Come live with me and won't you be my love
So I can love you all the time
Be part of me
Be the heart of me
Be mine

by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, as sung by Ray Charles